Uncomfortable Killer

August 5, 1988

Martin Sheen celebrated his 48th birthday on the set of Personal Choice, a film in which he plays a heroic astronaut who befriends a teen-age boy. Sheen said the role is ''more sedate'' than his intense characters in Badlands and Apocalypse Now. ''I don't have to kill anyone, threaten anyone or do anything dangerous,'' he said, ''I feel very comfortable.'' Sheen celebrated Wednesday at the Alabama Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, where youths attending a space camp marked the occasion with a chant of ''Martin, Martin, Martin.'' The ''sedate'' Sheen responded by leaping over a rail and moving into a crowd to sign autographs and shake hands.